Comment by phpnode
1 day ago
The other point is that recent polls suggest the British public are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation [0], which is not reflected in most of the narrative we see online. Whether they support how it has been implemented is a different matter, but the desire to do something is clear.
[0] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
It's sadly an example of terrible leading question bias, to the point where I'm surprised that it even got a 22% oppose rate.
The percentages would change dramatically were one to write it as, "From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring adults to upload their id or a face photo before accessing any website that allows user to user interaction?"
Both questions are factually accurate, but omit crucial aspects.
I live in a country where 91.78% of the population voted for a referendum that bought back hard labour in prisons.
As one of the few who voted against it I have yet to encounter a single person who voted for it who both supports hard labour and realised that was in the question being asked.
Why do you claim the 1999 referendum reintroduced hard labor in NZ prisons? I've never seen anything to that effect. The reforms were related to bail, victims rights and parole.
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Let me guess - ‘do you support violent prisoners being given work in proportion to their crimes’ or something similar?
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There’s a classic yes minister skit on how dubious polls can be: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks&t=45s
This doesn't quite cover what you're looking for but I think a previous survey led with a question that mentioned uploading ID - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202....
I can't find the survey it's entirety, but I think the above question was followed by (this is based on the number at the end of the URL, which I'm guessing is quesiton order) - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
Are there any credible surveys on this topic that don't use the term "pornographic websites" in the survey question?
"Do you want CHILDREN to be MURDERED by RAPEISTS online or are you a good person?
Y/N
then proceeds to the tea break and brainstorms on how to empower the monarchy and conquer the world
No
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Yeah. It's the "foot in the door technique." The same is being done with Chat Control.
It's very difficult to oppose a law ostensibly designed to fight CSAM. But once the law passes, it'll be easily expanded to other things like scanning messages to prevent terrorism.
See also:
> Concern over mass migration is terrorist ideology, says Prevent
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-over...
The problem is that one of the most secure places in the world is a maximum security prison. Hence many measures that drag us closer to the prison state do genuinely improve security.
It takes some balls for the society to say: No, we don't agree to yield an essential liberty in exchange to actual real increase of security. Yes, we accept that sometimes bad people will do evil things, because the only way to prevent that would inflict even more damage on everyone. Yes, we are willing to risk harm to stay free.
There is always plenty of people who are ready to buy more comfort in exchange for limitations of liberty that, as they think, will not affect them, because they are honest, got nothing to hide, always follow the majority... until it does affect them, but it's too late.
> It's very difficult to oppose a law ostensibly designed to fight CSAM. But once the law passes, it'll be easily expanded to other things like scanning messages to prevent terrorism.
Oh, look, you did it in literally two sentences. It turns out it's pretty easy to to oppose such law. Only there's simply no need to do it when you're the main beneficiary.
People constantly cite this poll as it is proof that British people want this.
You cannot trust the YouGov polling. It is flawed.
> Despite the sophisticated methodology, the main drawback faced by YouGov, Ashcroft, and other UK pollsters is their recruitment strategy: pollsters generally recruit potential respondents via self-selected internet panels. The American Association of Public Opinion Research cautions that pollsters should avoid gathering panels like this because they can be unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. The British Polling Council’s inquiry into the industry’s 2015 failings raised similar concerns. Trying to deal with these sample biases is one of the motivations behind YouGov and Ashcroft’s adoption of the modelling strategies discussed above.
https://theconversation.com/its-sophisticated-but-can-you-be...
Even if the aforementioned problems didn't exist with the polling. It has been known for quite a while that how you ask a question changes the results. The question you linked was the following.
> From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material?
Most people would think "age verification to view pornography". They won't think about all the other things that maybe caught in that net.
All polling has problems like this, but YouGov has the same methodology for everything and usually gets within a margin of error of +-8. Even if they have an especially bad sample, the UK probably really does support the law.
Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40.
> All polling has problems like this, but YouGov has the same methodology for everything and usually gets within a margin of error of +-8.
The way the very question was asked is a problem in itself. It is flawed and will lead to particular result.
> if they have an especially bad sample, the UK probably really does support the law
The issue is that the public often doesn't understand the scope of the law. Those that do are almost always opposed to it.
> Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40.
It isn't about the pornography. This is why conversations about this are frustrating.
I am worried about the surveillance aspect of it. I go online because I am pseudo-anonymous and I can speak more frankly to people about things that I care about to people who share similar concerns.
I don't like how the law came into place, the scope of the law, the privacy concerns and what the law does in practice.
Even if you don't buy any of that. There is a whole slew of other issues with it. Especially identity theft.
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>Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40
Are you suggesting that techies do not have any sexual appetite? That runs counter to many stereotypes I've encountered
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Most questions you could guess a number somewhere vaguely near 50% and be right a substantial amount of the time given such massive error bars.
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It seems like some things always remain the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
There is a Yes, {Prime Minister,Minister} for every occasion in tech.
As always, the devil is in the details. Very careful wording:
>do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material?
"may" is doing the heavy lifting. Any website that hosts image "may" contain pornograohic content. So they don't associate this with "I need id to watch YouTube" it's "I need ID to watch pornhub". Even though this affects both.
On top of that, the question was focused on peon to begin with. This block was focused more generally on social media. The popular ones of which do not allow pornography.
Rephrase the question to "do you agree with requiring ID submission to access Facebook" and I'd love to see how that impacts responses.
It's funny, I actually interpret it differently; by using "may" vs omitting it would actually imply to include sites like YouTube and Facebook. Without the "may", to me it would imply only sites that have a primary intent of pornographic material, not sites that could include it accidentally.
“Why yes I do either support or oppose those rules. Thanks for asking.”
Odd - they also believe it wont be effective
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
The moment the Russia Ukraine war hit, the top 10 apps in Russia was half VPNs.
As long as websites don't want to lock out any user without an account, and as long as vpns exist, it'll be hard to enforce any of this. At least for now, that's one line big tech won't let them cross easily.
It isn't a requirement to enforce this. All it does is to ensure that you will be more at risk of breaking the law and that little detail will show that you intended to evade the law so your presumption of innocence gets dinged: apparently you knew that what you were doing was wrong because you used a VPN so [insert minor offense or thought crime here] is now seen in a different light.
Selective enforcement is much more powerful as a tool than outright enforcement, before you know it double digit percentages of the populace are criminals, that might come in handy some day.
> top 10 apps in Russia was half VPNs... and as long as vpns exist, it'll be hard to enforce any of this.
Russia found good way to enforce it, they changed the law and give out prison sentences for using VPNs
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Yes it's quite possible for people to hold both those views.
> Whether they support how it has been implemented is a different matter, but the desire to do something is clear.
Isn't this the whole story of government policy? The stated policy so rarely actually leads to the hoped-for result.
That’s because the bedrock principle on which modern government is based is…
drum roll
Lie whenever it’s convenient because the public are children anyway and won’t or can’t understand.
Through this lens many things make more sense. They’re comfortable with lying because there are zero repercussions for lying.
They are not only children, but also goldfish who forget everything after 5 minutes
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They always name it the exact opposite of what it does.
If they name something the "Protect Children Act". You can be sure that what it does is put Children in Danger.
That means that on the face of it, it is difficult for someone to oppose.
Follow-up question is big lulz: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
"And how effective do you think the new rules will be at preventing those younger than 18 from gaining access to pornography?"
-> 64% "not very effective / not at all effective"
Ok and how about if it was phrased;
"Are you in favour of requiring ages verification for Wikipedia and other websites"
"Are you in favour of uploading your ID card and selfie each time you visit a site that might contain porn"
Why are we conflating pornography and Wikipedia?
Wikipedia hosts pornography.
Are you referring to educational pictures of human anatomy? There’s quite a difference between that and porn.
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The curtain twitcher/nanny state impulse is pretty strong
The Home Office is full of fascists, many of whom may - allegedly - have questionable personal habits and interests.
None of this has anything to do protecting the public. If that was the goal there are any number of other ways to manage this.
A good reminder that certain circles are just the vocal minority and under the surface society is mostly just NPCs.
Not a great lesson to take here.
1. Policy by default will always be planned and implemented by a minority. As well as those who comment to policy, or online.
2. You'll have some 20-30% of people who will say yes to anything if you phrase it the right way.